[libvirt] need help/clarification about git and patches.

[Gene Czarcinski]

Rather than cluttering up the mailing list, I am going to combine the 
helpful replies into a single response.  I am going to edit this to 
reduce clutter.

On 09/06/2012 01:26 PM, Laine Stump wrote:
> On 09/06/2012 11:59 AM, Gene Czarcinski wrote:
>> Using git is more than a little different way of doing business for
>> me.  My usual way to create and apply a patch is to rebuild a
>> src.rpm.  This way I have a lot less changes of screwing something up
>> because of ignorance.
> My experience is the opposite - I usually end up screwing something up
> if I try to mess with a src.rpm :-)

When you are deep into working on a large project such as libvirt, git 
is the way to go.  If you are just trying to create a small bugfix, then 
rpm can take care of all the extra stuff so that you get code that will 
work.  Besides, after working with rpm for over 15 years, you get 
comfortable with its ways.

<snip>
>> On Fedora and RHEL (I'm not sure about other platforms) git's 
>> "send-email" subcommand is in a sub-package of git called 
>> "git-email". See if your distro's package system can install a 
>> package with that name. 
I do not remember actually selecting the git package ... but, in the 
future, I will remember that I will also need the git-mail package.

I do suggest that the "hacking" get updated with this info.

On 09/06/2012 12:53 PM, Daniel P. Berrange wrote:

> One other tip the first time you try 'git send-email' is to test
> it using your own private email address, rather than the mailing
> list address :-)
Oh yes, this is definitely something to do!  I suggest this also be 
added to the "hacking" document.

On 09/06/2012 12:31 PM, Eric Blake wrote:
 >
 > Seems reasonable.  If the instructions in HACKING could use an
 > improvement, let us know what we can do to make it better.

One other minor detail.  It you have been using git for a while, what 
the "hacking" document says makes sense ... but it is not quite 
complete.  I realize that this document is about libvirt hacking and not 
a user's manual for git, but a little more info would be extremely useful.

Something like the following:

0. If on Fedora or RHEL, install the  git-mail package.

1. create a directory such as "git-dev" where you will have the 
repositories and then "cd" to that directory.

2. Do:
     "git init"
     "git --global user.email "me at here.com"
     "git --global user.name "Your Name"
     "git clone git://libvirt.org/libvirt.git"

[That last one was "interesting" because I had no idea where it was]

Note:  To use the "git send-email ...", you will likely need to set a 
number of options such as
   "git config sendemail.to me at here.com"


Thanks for your patience.

Gene